Jorge

Jorge came as a gift when we were searching for a little sister for Pablo. At 38 weeks, Jorge and Lucía were born like champions. They didn't weigh even 2 kilos when we took them home but they cried as if they were 20 kilos.

Jorge, in the middle with his siblings Pablo and Lucia

He has always been a little later in his stages of growth: he stopped using his nappy one summer after his sister; his favourite food is "baby food"; at three he still didn't have any teeth and he takes his dummy to bed with him (he hides it in a bedside draw in his hospital room so that the nurses don't find it but shhhh it's a secret).

What he likes more than anything in the world are bulls. When he grows up he wants to be a "recortador" because he says that the bulls in the arena suffer pain when they end the fight but the ones in the street don't. He has a huge collection of toy bulls ("the captain", "the rat", "happiness"...) and even a bull truck that the kings brought him. He passes hours and hours playing with them!

Jorge playing in his hospital room

He doesnt like to go to school. Before, when he woke up everyday his first question would be, is there school today? On Saturdays when the answer would be no, he ran around shouting yipeeeeee!! For that reason he thinks that life is great when we say goodbye to his brother and sister at the start of the school day and he stays at home with his mummy and his bulls.

Jorge has that special something that people have when they make you fall in love with them. It's not a mother's passion, if you know him, you never forget his smile or the expression in his eyes. Coke (as his sister has called him from an early age) is a legend!

What made his father and I take him for a blood test, I'll never know. Perhaps it was his guardian angel or perhaps a feeling that parents have that everything wasnt alright, even when the doctors say the contrary.

The hardest thing is that although I could believe that Jorge was anaemic, it never crossed my mind that his bone marrow, newly created, wasn't working well. (High risk acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, ALL).

Jorge nowadays

Jorge before the leukaemia

From that moment, the perfect life we had (although at the time we didnt realice it) disappeared and a totally new one began: without routines, without forecasts, full of uncertainty, of fear, of syrups, of hospital visits, of living every day with your heart in your mouth... It starts to be a daily routine of; bone marrow aspirations, intrathecal, prednisone, vincristine, asparaginase, methotrexate, mercaptopurine and more which we will discover when the transplant (of which I have a real fear) comes round. However, yesterday they gave us a glimmer of hope because they told us that his twin Lucía, is exactly compatible! I am now thinking that it was her that came as a gift, above all for Coke.

Jorge together with Lucía. ¡¡¡They are identical!!!

Coke and Lucía nowadays

Everytime one of the oncologist's words enters my head like: "it's a long road" I think to myself: "Jorge was born with his shoes on! He always "had" to have his bottle before his sister; he always ran down the garage steps because he "had" to be first in the car; he always "had" to sit at the end of the table because he is the "boss"; he always ran down the hall to be first in the bath; he always wanted to be the first to finish his dinner, and so on... Jorge always wants to win and this won't be an exception".

Fran and José Eduardo, the parents of Jorge, Pablo, and Lucía

They say that friends come in good moments when they are called and in the bad moments without needing to be called. We have realized who these friends are, and I want to give thanks to them for being by our side, and above all for being by Jorge's side. We have also realized the significance of the word FAMILY, (which deserves to be written in capitals) because this disease has been a hell which we have been forced to cross and I cannot imagine doing it without them.

This race will only end when Jorge crossed the finish line. My life plan is to be able to say to Jorge when he is older and (probably and fortunately) doesn't have any recollection of this experience, that superheroes like him that have already won the game of life once, can be and do anything they want".

Fran Ferrer (Coke's mum)

Help people like Jorge by becoming a member of the cure for leukaemia and haematological malignacies, HERE. You will help us to continue our research so that one day these diseases will be 100% curable. With only a little you can do so much. Thank you!